CRESTVIEW — Crestview High School's football team heads into the 2015 season hoping to end a rough four-year stretch.
The Bulldogs haven’t made the playoffs since 2010. The streak is the longest for the team since the stretch from 1996 to 2001, when Crestview failed to advance to the post season.
Crestview opened fall practice last week with a sense of optimism and urgency. Coach Tim Hatten is in his third year leading the Bulldog program, and he’s optimistic that things will improve in 2015.
“It’s a swing year for us," he said. "We are excited about the fact that we’ve got kids in our program that have been in our system three years.
“The only thing better than three years is four years. We like where we are at right now. We have a long ways to go, but we like where we are at.”
Hatten said the first week of practice was spent fine tuning some of the basics.
“We want to make sure that we understand what we are doing,” he said, “and that we are able to execute, we are able to do some things at the line of scrimmage and that we recognize some things on defense and we are able to move to the ball.
"We have to control turnovers, make good decisions on offense and run to the football on defense.”
Junior quarterback Rusty Moorer took over the starting job midway through last season and he said his game experience will benefit him this year.
“Things look good with the athletes we have,” he said. “Now I know the game speed and what I have to do.”
When Moorer took over as the starting quarterback, Corey Armstrong moved to linebacker.
Armstrong is glad to have found a home on defense, but where he plays isn’t his biggest concern.
“Making the playoffs, that’s the priority number one,” he said. “The summer workouts were hard, trying to get better.
“We have a little more confidence this year. We believe in what we are doing.”
Capri Jones believes the Bulldogs can make the playoffs with the right amount of effort.
“We have to work together and work hard with each other,” he said.
The preseason is young, but Hatten sees the same hard work Jones sees.
“We are working hard,” he said. “We’ve got 135-140 kids in the program. That’s good numbers in all three of our teams.
“We like our athleticism and we certainly like our enthusiasm.”
Email News Bulletin Sports Editor Randy Dickson, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview football coach optimistic about 2015 season